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BNH Business and Civic Awards: FOUNDER OF THE YEAR
Top Dogs
For 70 years the Hummel family has had Connecticut's best answer to the question, 'Where's the beef?
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Business New Haven
2/2/2004
By: Lisa MiCali
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The history of the hot dog in America is a long and colorful one, bathed in mid-19 century folklore and larger-than-life moments - somewhat akin to the warm and generous story behind Hummel Hot Dogs, a venerated Old World sausage institution based in the Elm City since the early 1930s.
Popular legend behind the birth of the famed dog (commonly called the "dachshund," or "frankfurter," as the little sausage was then known) is traditionally credited to the Germans and chiefly, to the city of Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany during the late 15th century. However, this claim is disputed by those who assert that the savory sausage was created in the late 1600s by Johann Georghehner, a butcher living in Coburg, Germany.
Whatever its origin, there is little disputing that the American hot dog comes from a common European sausage brought here by butchers of several nationalities. Those of German descent served it with bread; consequently it's the German immigrants who are credited with first sticking the dogs into a "milk" bun and selling them out of "dog wagons," or what we call hot dog carts today.
It was about at the dawn of the 20th century that the hot dog industry began to heat up. The dog's popularity soared as people instantly accepted the well-liked food because it was cheap, easy to eat and convenient. Local hot dog manufacturers in cities across the country sprang up nearly overnight and multiplied, encouraging immigrants such as the Hummel brothers - William, 31 and Robert, 30 - from Hals, Germany to venture across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a better life in America.
In 1920, the two Hummels left their eight brothers and two sisters as well as their parents behind in the Black Forest for an uncertain future toiling at the Carl Roessler Co. in New Haven. Roessler was a family friend who had immigrated a few years earlier.
Before long Robert was working for Phil's Sausage Kitchen on Congress Avenue, but he was not earning enough to make ends meet and in fact had filed for bankruptcy. The year was 1933 - the very pit of the Depression - and money was tight. The two brothers managed to borrow $1,000 from one of Robert's good customers: Charlie Braun, owner of Braun's Tavern on Howard Avenue. The bankruptcy commissioner accepted the money - and that's how Hummel's Hot Dogs got its start.
Today the business is mainly run by a third generation of Hummels (Eric, Billy Jr., John and Mary Ellen), although the second generation (Bill Sr., Bob and Kurt) maintains a hand on the helm guiding the business into the 21st century. Like Kurt, one of the sons of the original founders, put it recently: "We're all just hanging out to give us something to do."
The history behind the company is like many immigrant stories but with subtle differences. First, Robert and William were educated and skilled laborers who brought a trade with them, unlike a majority of their immigrant brethren. The business back in the 1930s was practically unregulated - and the business culture far more brutal than today's.
"Both were metzgers, or butchers, in the old country," recounts Kurt Hummel, Robert's son who is the secretary/treasurer of Hummel's. "Times weren't easy, and competition was fierce. There were seven or eight major competitors. The business was cutthroat. A rival salesman would go into a shop after you and leave a basket of hot dogs and baloney at no charge in order to steal the business away."
Still, the Hummels' growth from the outset was steady. The brothers were able to pay back their backer, Charlie Braun, within the first year. Their customers' acceptance of good products at reasonable prices eased some of their sales and marketing worries.
As word spread about the Hummels and their wares, sales increased and as Bill Sr., the president and son of co-founder William, recalls, "Customers called on us."
During World War II and immediately thereafter, the shop in the front of the plant had lines of customers out the door. After the war the Hummels put on a new addition to the Congress Avenue plant and added routes and trucks to meet the new demand.
The Hummels' customers now counted in the hundreds and stretched westward to Bridgeport and to the east along the shores of Long Island Sound, and all the way north to the growing cities of Middletown and Waterbury.
Times were changing for the Hummels - and so was the food industry: The business was fast becoming the object of increasing regulation as safety concerns intensified throughout the late 1950s and early '60s.
Back in the 1930s and '40s, business was conducted with a handshake, and products sold out of wicker baskets. "Insulated boxes lined the rear of the trucks to keep the cold cuts and hot dogs cold," explains Bill Sr. "They used to make daily stops at the delis and butcher shops. Salespeople would fill up a basket and present the products directly to the shop owner in the hope they would carry them. My dad had several trucks and about 15 or 20 employees at the time, mostly family members. We also had a small store in the front of the plant, as we do now, selling directly to customers."
"It was tough in the early years," adds brother Kurt, "but we survived some hard times. Like when we when we took the color out of the hot dogs in the late 1950s, it took awhile for the public to catch on. Sales dropped. It took a lot of hard work to convince the public that it was a better product and a safer product too."
Hot dogs, Kurt Hummel explains, used to be a reddish-orange color. "The FDA kept telling us we couldn't use this ingredient or that ingredient [including dyes] for health reasons. The public, though, was used to seeing the product a certain way and it was slow going for them to change their attitudes to the new colorless [brown] hot dog."
Besides a color change, the hot dog business has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past 70 years. Today the business, operating out of Long Wharf, is as clean as any hospital as ever more-stringent USDA rules and regulations keep Hummel's quality-control managers on their toes.
Business has changed in other ways too: "It's a lot more automated today, but the thing that has remained constant over all these years is the quality of our ingredients," says Mary Ellen Hummel, controller and a third-generation Hummel. "We've been able to maintain our original commitment to high-quality ingredients while other companies haven't."
Since the company's beginnings, the Hummels remarkable commitment to their craft have earned them a stellar reputation in hot dog circles (if there are such things as "hot dog circles").
"We've succeeded by one word: quality," explains director of marketing Eric Hummel, a cousin of Mary Ellen's. "My grandfather used to say, if you make a cheap product someone can always make it cheaper. But if you make the best quality product that you can, very few people can make it better. And that's really what we live on."
Despite its humble origins, different varieties and brands of hot dogs can inspire fierce loyalties among their adherents. In a word, folks don't like it when you mess with their wieners.
"Hot-dog people are very fanatical," chuckles Eric. "We like to say we have a small but warped following. People grow accustomed to a taste and don't vary their hot dog much. In New York, you get an all-beef hot dog, which is more of garlic, richer taste. In Massachusetts, it's more of a bland hot dog. So, where you're from is really the flavor you look for.
"We get people who move away from the area and want ten pounds of our hot dogs, and we FedEx it to them," Eric Hummel adds. "We also ship down to Florida, and to customer in Arizona but for the most part we sell only in Connecticut - even though our hot dog could compete in New York because of our spice makeup."
Adds Billy Jr. (brother of Mary Ellen and John), who runs the day-to-day operation at the processing plant: "Our products stand alone, which makes it an easy sell. Most times the stores in the area - like Shaw's did in the recent past - will give us a call, instead of us having to call them to get our product on their shelves. That says a lot about our products."
The company's course since Eric, Mary Ellen, John and Billy Jr. took over everyday operations has been as sure and steady as was the second generation's when they assumed the helm from the founders, William and Robert. But the third generation has done it in a new and different way: diversification.
Adding product variety to an existing portfolio of 20 to 30 foodstuffs has played a significant role in helping the company stay focused on its market and increase annual sales. And as the generations have changed hands, the products too, have changed alongside them.
"When the third generation took command, we went out to improve the business" explains Eric Hummel. "That was our intent. But to change the way things were done for the better, not just because. A lot of the products that used to be big sellers were discontinued - pepper loaf, plain loaf, little braunschweigers - because they're just don't sell to someone under 40. But our corned beef and spiral hams - all of these newer products have established a 12-month business instead of just a summer business. This is the key to our survival and our future growth."
John Hummel, who manages purchasing for the company, sees the business changing in other fundamental ways.
"There's a lot more competition in the market now," he says. "There are more national brands that we compete against than in my father's generation. The meat and deli cases are dominated by the major national brands. And people's tastes have evolved. Turkey, chicken breast is popular because of health reasons. [That's] something we don't do."
Led by Billy Jr.'s new product development, the third generation has helped the company better manage year-round cash flow and grow sales to accommodate traditionally slow cycles.
"Like this past summer, where the rain dominated the landscape in New England for the better part of 12 or 14 weeks, and we actually wound up selling items that normally wouldn't sell in the time period like corn beef or ham; [those products] got us through the season," he says. "In Connecticut, what makes us unique is our ability to withstand the test of time and continue to grow and evolve. In this business, if you're not growing, you're going to go out of business."
Running a family business over three generations is hardly for the faint of heart - but the Hummels get along with apparent ease. All share a robust sense of humor and a passion for the business. It's surely is easier said than done, but all agree that the key to cooperation and success is to stay focused on what is best for the business.
Says Mary Ellen: "As long as it is good for the company as a whole, it's going to be best for everybody individually. You have to look at the big picture. And that is hard to do when you feel the successes and failures of the business to the extreme, because it's part of you."
Once upon a time there were five hot dog manufacturers in the city of New Haven; today Hummel's is the last one standing - the veritable top dog. And that's something the folks at Hummel's are pretty proud of.
They've worked wisely and well over the years and maintained their commitment to the city that nurtured their business. There were times, they acknowledge, when they could have relocated operations to lower costs, but they always elected not to. That speaks volumes about their commitment to their products, their traditions, their employees and to their Elm City home.
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